


In Your Arms Tonight

by waywardriot



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24720841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardriot/pseuds/waywardriot
Summary: “I killed you,” Goro says conversationally, like he’s talking about how it’s supposed to rain on Thursday. “In my dream. You were sleeping in my bed and the gun was under my pillow, and I killed you.” He closes his eyes once more and sighs deeply, so unimaginably weary. “Again.”When Goro has a nightmare, someone cares for the first time.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 29
Kudos: 279





	In Your Arms Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello! i'm very new to this fandom so i'm not sure how accurate my characterization is, but i'm learning.
> 
> this is basically to be viewed as some amount of time after the end of persona 5, when goro and akira are kinda dating but not really because goro is emotionally stunted
> 
> i think this just has vanilla p5 spoilers

Goro wakes up at the sound of a gunshot. 

Thankfully it’s not real—or not thankfully, perhaps, because it was a gunshot in his mind that he had to watch kill Akira again. It’s the third time this week. 

At once, he sits up, an instinct that he has no control over. When he turns his head to the side, Akira is there, just like in his dream, facing away from him—exposing his back, like he _trusts_ Goro that much. 

Careful, as careful as can be, Goro leans over him and reaches out to where Akira’s arm is splayed out. His touch is featherlight as he presses his fingers to the hollow of Akira’s wrist; his pulse flutters under his skin, slow with sleep, and some of the residual panic knotted up in Goro’s chest fades away. 

Akira is alive, he’s here, he’s present. There’s no blood pooling under his head, soaking into the pillow. His heart beats, his lungs take in air, his blood still circulates. Everything is as it should be. 

It’s a relief to know that, but after a dream like that, sleep isn’t going to be able to capture Goro again.

Still moving softly so he won’t wake Akira up, he scoots back until he’s leaning against the headboard and presses a hand to his forehead, closing his eyes. 

He’s so fucking _tired_ of these nightmares. 

They’re nothing new, of course—he’s been plagued with various nightmares about all sorts of awful things ever since he was put into the system, with no choice but to sequester his fears in his subconscious where they would emerge in his sleep.

What’s new about these, though, is that it’s always Akira. And this time, when he kills him, he feels guilt. It’s an excruciating emotion, one he learned to pack up in a neat little box and store somewhere in the back of his mind because it would only be a hindrance towards his goal. 

Now it comes in waves, in floods, unforgiving and unforgetting—but only ever in terms of Akira. 

Goro intends to wait out the feelings of disgust, of guilt, of regret, but he almost wants to scream when Akira starts to stir next to him. He feels haggard like this, sucked dry, and doesn’t want to be seen this... this vulnerable. Weak. Pathetic. But it seems that Akira always breaks down those walls no matter how resistant Goro tries to be.

“Goro?” he mumbles, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. When Goro looks at him, Akira’s expression is visible by the light of the moon, vulnerable as well but in an entirely different way, one that makes Goro’s chest feel tight. 

“I’m just thinking. Go back to sleep,” Goro answers, trying to keep his voice level. He’s afraid he failed. 

“Are you okay?”

And there it is, the soft, caring tone of voice that Goro doesn’t deserve to hear, not in a million years; it’s a voice that should be reserved for someone whole, someone kind, someone who isn’t festering inside.

Goro doesn’t want to talk about this, not really, but before he knows it, words are coming out of his mouth without his permission. Despite Goro’s reticence, Akira has always managed to draw things out of him, always managed to find the cracks in Goro’s armor and force his fingers in.

“I killed you,” Goro says conversationally, like he’s talking about how it’s supposed to rain on Thursday. “In my dream. You were sleeping in my bed and the gun was under my pillow, and I killed you.” He closes his eyes once more and sighs deeply, so unimaginably weary. “Again.”

“Do you dream about it often?”

Goro pauses, hesitates—but really, he has nothing to lose. 

Well, nothing that he isn’t already going to lose one day, when Akira finally realizes that Goro is rotting down to his core and can’t be salvaged. 

“Yes. Over and over again.”

Akira is silent for moments that feel infinitely long. Goro kneads his hands together in his lap, anxiously trying to do something with them in order to keep from tearing at his arms with his nails. Then there’s the noise of fabric shifting, and Akira mimics Goro’s position, sitting up with his back against the headboard. 

“Are you okay?” Akira asks again. 

“Yes.” Another pause, another hesitation. “I don’t know.”

“I know.” And Akira sits there quietly, taciturn and betraying nothing. Goro can tell he’s tired, but he hopes it’s just from sleep deprivation and not the bone-deep exhaustion that comes with years of suffering. 

Unexpectedly, Akira leans his head on Goro’s shoulder, still silent. Goro tenses up instinctively even though he knows this is safe—he just doesn’t understand. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“It’s stupid to want to be around me. I dreamed about killing you, after all.”

“It was a nightmare, right?” Not really a question—a statement. “So that means you didn’t want it to happen.”

“You don’t know that,” Goro says flatly. “Perhaps it was the best dream of my life. Perhaps killing you is still a repressed fantasy of mine.”

“But it’s not,” Akira replies, and ah—he finally sounds exasperated, an expression of emotion that only Goro is privy to. “You’re not very good at lying.”

“I am too,” Goro retorts, offended. Of course he is, after having spent so, so many years crafting a lie and living it almost all the time; it’s simply an insult to say that he failed.

“You’re not any good at lying to me,” Akira amends, moving even closer until they’re slotted together fully, until he can tilt his face into the crook of Goro’s neck. “I’m not going to let you chase me away.”

Goro clicks his tongue, but he doesn’t attempt to push Akira’s face away because he knows that if he does, Akira will just try again. And again, and again, until Goro acquiesces and lets him. “I’m not chasing you away. I just think it’s in your best interest to leave.”

This is a disagreement they’re rehashed time and time again: Goro adamantly insists that he’s just going to end up hurting Akira in the end, and Akira just as adamantly insists that he won’t.

Goro won’t give that argument up, though, because he _knows_ he isn’t good for Akira—or anyone, really, but especially not Akira. It’s simply a fact of life that Goro is a bad person down to the roots of his very being, independent of murder, independent of Shido, independent of his past. 

“I think it’s in your best interest to stop being a self-loathing idiot,” Akira mutters into Goro’s neck, as flippant as to be expected from him.

Before Goro can get irritated with him for calling him an idiot, Akira curls up further, clinging onto Goro’s arm and drawing his legs up. A retort dies somewhere on Goro’s tongue, taken place by an aching, appetent feeling. 

This is too intimate, too vulnerable, too much for safety. The cracks in Goro’s armor, this time, seem to have been big enough for Akira to force his arm through, to get some kind of hold on Goro’s heart. It feels like it’s being squeezed too tightly for comfort, because Akira refuses to let go. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever done anything in my best interest,” Goro says quietly, subtly leaning into Akira. His life has been a damning cycle, harmful coping method after self-destructive behavior after dangerous decision. 

“Well,” Akira murmurs as he takes hold of Goro’s hand, “you’re here with me. Instead of alone in your apartment. I think that’s good.”

If Goro could cry—sometimes he thinks he no longer has the capacity to—he would at how tenderly Akira slides his fingers in between his own, a simple gesture filled with a kind of devotion and care that Goro can’t even fully fathom. As it is, he still feels all knotted up inside, a complex mix of emotions that he can’t articulate; he’s never been able to fully comprehend the feelings he has for Akira. 

“I—” And just as he fears, his voice is audibly choked and he has to pause yet again, trying to stuff everything back into the box in his mind that somehow split open. “I suppose it is,” he concedes after a few moments, sounding strained. 

Akira simply hums and presses closer. Goro feels like it’s too much and not enough at the same time; all at once he’s terrified of harming Akira yet desperate to feel loved. 

Then Akira kisses his neck, and Goro bites his lower lip so hard he hopes it’ll bleed—but no such luck. 

This is so pathetic, so much noxious vulnerability finding its way out into the open in the exact way Goro doesn’t want. Somehow, time after time, wall after wall built, Akira manages to break them down and see the Akechi Goro that no one else has ever seen. It all makes him feel so weak, so pitiful, so wretched that he could just _d_ —

“You’re thinking so loudly,” Akira sighs, giving his hand a squeeze that’s almost so firm it hurts. “It’s just me. No one else.”

Goro only answers with a sigh of his own and drags his free hand down his face. It’s just Akira, he tries to assure himself. It’s just Akira. It’s _just Akira._

While Goro tries to grapple with the nimiety of emotions overcoming him, Akira’s thumb strokes over the back of his hand, and Goro does his best to focus on the sensation, something to tether him down and keep the impending panic attack from breaching the horizon. 

Once he feels the knot in his chest loosen itself after a few minutes, he breathes out slowly and then finally squeezes Akira’s hand in return. “Okay,” is all he says, his tongue heavy in his mouth. “Okay.”

“C’mon. Let’s go back to sleep.”

Goro almost makes a noise of upset when Akira pulls away, but he forces himself to hold it back because he’s not a child, for god’s sake. As Akira lays down again, he lets himself be pulled along as well without argument; he always permits Akira to do so much more than anyone else. 

He remains pliant while Akira shifts around, adjusting the blankets and his pillow and then pulling Goro into his arms. Goro may be resistant to this sort of physical comfort—he can’t be _weak_ —most of the time, but right now he’s happy to curl into Akira, his head tucked under Akira’s chin, one arm resting over his waist to hold onto the back of his shirt. It’s comfortable and cozy and, turns out, exactly what Goro needs right now because when he pushes even closer, he can feel Akira’s heartbeat against him. The further reassurance that he’s alive, that Goro didn’t kill him, unties the knot until it’s just a length of twine instead of an incomprehensible mess. 

As gently as Goro needs, Akira’s hand settles in his hair, drawing through the strands and caressing his scalp. It’s peaceful and quiet, nothing but the sounds of their breathing, until— “Need me to sing you to sleep?” The smirk in Akira’s voice is evident, and Goro has half a mind to smack him. 

“Do you want me to have another nightmare?” Goro asks wryly. 

Akira just laughs in response, which Goro can feel rumbling into his own chest and suffusing his whole being, such a secure feeling; like this, he knows he’s not hurting Akira. 

“Glad to know you’ve still got your bark.” Goro pinches him firmly. “Ow. And your bite.”

The fond affection that bubbles up in Goro’s chest almost scares him, but it’s not an unfamiliar feeling when it comes to Akira—still unknown, still frightening, but never painful. Rolling his eyes unseen, he hides his smile against Akira’s collarbone and dryly replies, “Goodnight, Akira.”

For the first time, he falls back asleep after a nightmare, tided over by the warmth of arms around him and a heartbeat against him, safe and sound.


End file.
